Thomas De Witt Talmage
American Presbyterian preacher, clergyman and reformer during the mid-to late 19th century.
Thomas De Witt Talmage (January 7, 1832 – April 12, 1902) was a preacher, clergyman and divine in the United States who held pastorates in the Reformed Church in America and Presbyterian Church. He was one of the most prominent religious leaders in the United States during the mid- to late-19th century, equaled as a pulpit orator perhaps only by Henry Ward Beecher. He also preached to crowds in England. During the 1860s and 70s, Talmage was a well-known reformer in New York City and was often involved in crusades against vice and crime.
During the last years of his life, Talmage ceased preaching and devoted himself to editing, writing, and lecturing. At different periods he was editor of the Christian at Work (1873–76), New York; the Advance (1877–79), Chicago; Frank Leslie's Sunday Magazine (1879–89), New York; and the Christian Herald (1890–1902), New York. Each week he was said to have preached to audiences of 8,000 people, and for many years his sermons were published regularly in more than 3,000 journals, through which he was said to reach 25,000,000 readers.
Biography
Early life and education
T. De Witt Talmage was born in what is now Franklin Township, Somerset County, New Jersey and he was a member of the Reformed Church of Bound Brook (located on Main Street in South Bound Brook) and always had a close association to South Bound Brook. His ancestors included some of the earliest Dutch families who settled in New York. His father's ancestors came from Barton Stacy, England, and included founders of Southampton and East Hampton, New York.
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This entry incorporates text from “Thomas De Witt Talmage” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.